NOW HE IS FOR THE NUMBERS.
Romeo and Juliet; ii.----4.
When Mr. and Mrs. Fenton were in the carriage, driving from Mrs. Gore's
to Mrs. Frostwinch's, Arthur broke into a pleasant little laugh, as if
a sudden thought had amused him.
"Why in the world, Edith," he asked, "couldn't you let that moon-calf
Candish fight his own battle to-night? He would have tied himself all
up in two moments, with a little judicious help I should have been glad
to give him."
"I knew it," was her answer, "and that is precisely why I wanted to
stop things. What possible amusement it can be to you to get the better
of a man who is so little a match for you in argument, I don't
understand."
"I never begin," Fenton responded. "Of course if he starts it I have to
defend myself."
The stopping of the carriage prevented further discussion, and the pair
were soon involved in the crowd of people struggling toward the hostess
across Mrs. Denton Frostwinch's handsome drawing-room. Mrs. Frostwinch
belonged, beyond the possibility of any cavilling doubt, to the most
exclusive circle of fashionable Boston society. Boston society is a
complex and enigmatical thing, full of anomalies, bounded by wavering
and uncertain lines, governed by no fixed standards, whether of wealth,
birth, or culture, but at times apparently leaning a little toward each
of these three great factors of American social standing.
It is seldom wise to be sure that at any given Boston house whatever,
one will not find a more or less strong dash of democratic flavor in
general company, and there are those who discover in this fact
evidences of an agreeable and lofty republicanism. At Mrs. Frostwinch's
one was less likely than in most houses to encounter socially doubtful
characters, a fact which Arthur Fenton, who was secretly flattered to
be invited here, had once remarked to his wife was an explanation of
the dulness of these entertainments.
For Mrs. Frostwinch's parties were apt to be anything but lively. One
was morally elevated by being able to look on the comely and high-bred
face of Mrs. Bodewin Ranger, but that fine old lady had a sort of
religious scruple against saying anything in particular in company, a
relic of the days of her girlhood, when cleverness was not the fashion
in her sex and when she had been obliged to suppress herself lest she
outshine the high-minded and courtly but dreadfully dull gentleman she
married.
One had here the pleasure of shaking one of the white fingers of Mr.
Plant, the most exquisite _gourmet_ in Boston, whose only daughter had
made herself ridiculous by a romantic marriage with a country farmer.
The Stewart Hubbards, who were the finest and fiercest aristocrats in
town, and whose ancestors had been possessed not only of influence but
of wealth ever since early colonial days, were old and dear friends of
Mrs. Frostwinch and always decorated her parlors on gala nights with
their benign presence. Mr. Peter Calvin, the leader of art fashions,
high priest of Boston conservatism, and author of numerous laboriously
worthless books, seldom failed to diffuse the aroma of his patronizing
personality through the handsome parlors of this hospitable mansion
when there was any reasonable chance of his securing an audience to
admire him; and in general terms the company was what the newspapers
call select and distinguished.
For Mrs. Frostwinch was entitled to a leading place in society upon
whichever of the three great principles it was based. She was descended
from one of the best of American families, while her good-tempered if
somewhat shadowy husband was of lineage quite as unexceptional as her
own. She was possessed of abundant wealth, while in cleverness and
culture she was the peer of any of the brilliant people who frequented
her house. She was moderately pretty, dressed beautifully, was sweet
tempered, and possessed all good gifts and graces except repose and
simplicity. She perhaps worked too hard to keep abreast of the times in
too many currents, and her mental weariness instead of showing itself
by an irritable temper found a less disagreeable outlet in a certain
nervous manner apt to seem artificial to those who did not know her
well. She was a clever, even a brilliant woman, who assembled clever
and brilliant people about her, although as has been intimated, the
result was by no means what might have been expected from such material
and such opportunities. The truth is that there seems to be a fatal
connection between exclusiveness and dulness. The people who assembled
in Mrs. Frostwinch's handsome parlors usually seemed to be
unconsciously laboring under the burden of their own respectability.
They apparently felt that they had fulfilled their whole duty by simply
being there; and while the list of people present at one of Mrs.
Frostwinch's evenings made those who were not there sigh with envy at
thought of the delights they had missed, the reality was far from being
as charming as their fancy.
"I wish somebody would bring Amanda Welsh Sampson here," murmured
Arthur in his wife's ear, as the Fentons made their way toward their
hostess. "It would be too delicious to see how she'd stir things up,
and how shocked the old tabby dowagers would be."
But there were some social topics which were too serious to Edith to be
jested upon.
"Mrs. Sampson!" she returned, with an expression of being really
shocked. "That dreadful creature!"
The rooms were well filled; the clatter of innumerable tongues speaking
English with that resonant dryness which reminds one of nothing else so
much as of the clack of a negro minstrel's clappers indefinitely
reduplicated, rang in the ears with confusing steadiness. An hour was
spent in fragmentary conversations, which somehow were always
interrupted at the instant the interesting point was reached. The men
bestirred themselves with more or less alacrity, making their way about
the room with a conscientious determination to speak to everybody whom
duty called upon them to address, or more selfishly devoting themselves
to finding out and chatting with the pretty girls. Fenton found time
for the latter method while being far too politic to neglect the
former. He was chatting in a corner with Ethel Mott, when Fred Rangely,
whose successful novel had made him vastly the fashion that winter,
joined them.
"When wit and beauty get into a corner together," was Rangely's
salutation, "there is sure to be mischief brewing."
"It isn't at all kind," Miss Mott retorted, "for you to emphasize the
fact that Mr. Fenton has all the wit and I not any."
"It is as kind," Fenton said, "as his touching upon the plainness of my
personal appearance."
"Your mutual modesty in appropriating wit and beauty," Rangely
returned, "goes well toward balancing the account."
"One has to be modest when you appear, Mr. Rangely," Miss Mott
declared, saucily, "simply to keep up the average."
"Come," Fenton said, "this will serve as an excellent beginning for a
quarrel. I will leave you to carry it on by yourselves. I have got too
old for that sort of amusement."
Rangely looked after the artist as the latter took himself off to join
Mrs. Staggchase, who was holding court not far away.
"You may follow if you want to," Ethel said, intercepting the glance.
Rangely laughed, a trifle uneasily.
"I don't want to," he replied, "if you will be good natured."
"Good natured? I like that! I am always good natured. You had better go
than to stay and abuse me. But then, as you have been at Mrs.
Staggchase's all the afternoon, you ought to be pretty well talked out."
The young man turned toward her with an air of mingled surprise and
impatience.
"Who said I had been there?" he demanded.
"It was in the evening papers," she returned, teasingly. "All your
movements are chronicled now you have become a great man."
"Humph! I am glad you were interested in my whereabouts."
"But I wasn't in the least."
"Are you sparring as usual, Miss Mott?" asked Mr. Stewart Hubbard,
joining them. "Good evening, Mr. Rangely."
"Oh, Mr. Hubbard," Miss Mott said, ignoring the question, "I want to
know who is to make the statue of _America_. It is going to stand
opposite our house, so that it will be the first thing I shall see when
I look out of the window in the morning, and naturally I am interested."
"Mr. Herman is making a study, and Mr. Irons has been put up to asking
this new woman for a model. What is her name? The one whose _Galatea_
made a stir last year."
"Mrs. Greyson," Rangely answered. "I used to know her before she went
to Rome."
"Is she clever?" demanded Miss Mott, with a sort of girlish
imperiousness which became her very well. "I can't have a statue put up
unless it is very good indeed."
"She might take Miss Mott as a model," Mr. Hubbard suggested, smiling.
"For America? Oh, I am too little, and altogether too civilized. I'd do
better for a model of Monaco, thank you."
"There is always a good deal of chance about you," Rangely said in her
ear, as Mr. Staggchase spoke to Mr. Hubbard and drew his attention away.
Mr. Staggchase was a thin, wintry man, looking, as Fenton once said,
like the typical Yankee spoiled by civilization. He had always in a
scene of this sort the air of being somewhat out of place, but of
having brought his business with him, so that he was neither idle nor
bored. It was upon business that he now spoke to Hubbard.
"Did you see Lincoln to-day?" he asked. "He has got an ultimatum from
those parties. They will sell all their rights for $70,000."
"For $70,000," repeated Mr. Hubbard, thoughtfully. "We can afford to
give that if we are sure about the road; but I don't know that we are.
If Irons gets hold of any hint of what we are doing he can upset the
whole thing."
"But he won't. There is no fear of that."
A movement in the crowd brought Edith Fenton at this moment to the side
of Mr. Hubbard. She was radiant to-night in her primrose gown, and the
gentleman, with whom she was always a favorite, turned toward her with
evident pleasure.
"Isn't it a jam," she said. "I have ceased to have any control over my
movements."
"That is unkind, when I fancied you allowed yourself to give me the
pleasure of seeing you," returned he with elaborate courtesy. "Let me
take you in to the supper-room."
"Thank you," Edith replied, taking his arm. "I do not object to an ice,
and I want to ask a favor. Haven't you some copying you can give a
_protegee_ of mine? She's a lovely girl, and she really writes very
nicely. I assure you she needs the work, or I wouldn't bother you."
They made their way into the hall before he answered. Then he asked,
with some seriousness,--
"Are you sure she is absolutely to be trusted?"
"Trusted? Why, of course. I'd trust her as absolutely as I would
myself."
"I asked because I do happen to have some copying I want done; but it
is of the most serious importance that it be kept secret. It is the
prospectus of a big business scheme, and if a hint of it got on the air
it would all be ruined."
Edith looked up into his face and smiled.
"Her name," she said, "is Melissa Blake, and you will find her--Or,
wait; what time shall I send her to your office to-morrow?"
Her companion smiled in turn. They had reached the door of the
supper-room, where the clatter of dishes, the popping of champagne
corks, and the rattle of silver were added to the babble of
conversation which filled the whole house. About the tables was going
on a struggle which, however well-bred, was at least sufficiently
vigorous.
"You take a good deal for granted," he said. "However, it will do no
harm for me to see the young woman. She may come at eleven. What shall
I bring you?"
V
'TWAS WONDROUS PITIFUL.
Othello; i.--3.
"Dear John, I will give it up any day you say, and go back to
Feltonville and live on the farm; but you know"--
Melissa Blake broke off and left her chair to take a seat on the corner
of that on which her betrothed, John Stanton, was sitting, a proceeding
which made it necessary for him to put his arm about her trig waist to
support her.
"Don't think I don't understand, dear," she said, nestling up to him,
"how hard it is, and what a long drag it has been, but we should
neither of us ever feel quite satisfied to give it up. We can hold on,
can't we, as long as we are together."
He kissed her fondly, but with a certain air of distraction which
showed how full was his mind of the matter which troubled him. Two
years before, he had come to Boston, and obtained work as a carpenter,
determined to pay the debts left by his dead father, before he would
marry and settle down on the small farm which belonged to his
betrothed, and which, while it might be made to yield a living, could
by no means be looked to for more. For the sake of being near him,
Melissa had given up the school teaching of which she was fond, and
come to the city also, and although she had found the difficulty of
earning the means of support far greater than she had anticipated, she
had still clung to the fortunes of her lover, to whom her steadfastness
and unfailing cheer were of a value such as men realize only when it is
lost.
"I got a letter to-day," John went on, while Melissa stroked his
fingers fondly, "about the meadows. The time for redeeming them is up
this month, and if I try to do it I can't pay anything on the debts
this winter. The truth is "--
Melissa sat up suddenly.
"John!" she exclaimed.
"Why, what--what is the matter?"
She looked at him with wide open eyes, drawing in her under lip beneath
her white teeth, with the air of profound meditation. Then she freed
herself abruptly from his arms and went hastily to the table upon which
were her writing materials. She had been at work copying when her lover
came in, and her papers lay still open, with ink scarcely dry, where
she had stopped to welcome him. She took one sheet up and studied it
eagerly, and then turned toward him with shining eyes, her whole face
aglow.
"Oh, John!" she exclaimed.
He regarded her in puzzled silence. Then in an instant the glad light
faded from her eyes, and her lips lost their smile. An expression of
pain and almost of terror replaced the look of joy. There had suddenly
come to Melissa a sense of what she was doing. In the paper she held
was written the plan of the formation of a syndicate to purchase the
very range of meadows along the river in Feltonville of which those
mentioned by John formed a part. At Mrs. Fenton's direction, Melissa
had gone to see Mr. Hubbard, and had by him been employed to copy these
papers for use at a meeting of the proposed stockholders, which was to
take place in a few days.
"Mrs. Fenton tells me," he had said, "that you are to be trusted. It is
absolutely essential that you do not mention these plans to any living
being. Perfect secrecy is expected from you, and it is only because
Mrs. Fenton is your guarantee that I run the risk of putting them into
your hands."
"I think you can trust me," she had answered; "even if," she had added,
with the ghost of a smile, "there were anybody that I know who would be
at all likely to be interested."
And now the temptation had come to her in a way of which she had never
dreamed. She had gone on with her copying, smiling to herself at the
coincidence which put into the hands of a Feltonville girl this plan
for the metamorphosis of the sleepy old village into a bustling
manufacturing town, but she had not considered that this scheme might
have important bearing upon the fortunes of her lover. She knew that
Stanton's father had owned meadows along the river where the new
factories were to lie, and she knew also that when old Mr. Stanton died
these had been sold with a condition of redemption, but until this
moment she had not connected the facts. She did not understand
business, and had been puzzling her brain as she wrote, to understand
what was meant by the statement that a certain company would sell a
"six months' option at seventy thousand dollars" on a water-power for
two thousand dollars. She did understand now, however, that were John
in possession of the secret of the syndicate's plans, he could redeem
his father's meadows with the money he had saved toward the payment of
the debts which had forced the old man into the bankruptcy that broke
his heart, and once he owned these lands lying in the midst of the
desirable tract, John could command his own price for them. She held in
her hand the secret which would free her lover from the heavy burden of
years, and bring quickly the wedding-day for which they had both waited
and longed so patiently.
The blood bounded so hotly in Melissa's veins as she realized all this,
that she could scarcely breathe; but like a lightning flash a thought
followed which sent the tide surging back to her heart, and left her
cold and faint. She remembered that this knowledge was a trust. That
she had given her word not to betray it. With instant recoil, she
leaped to the thought that advising her lover to redeem these meadows
was not betraying the secret. Like a swift shuttle flew her mind
between argument and defence, between temptation and resistance,
between love and duty.
"Why, what is it, Milly?" John demanded, starting up and coming to her.
"What in the world makes you act so funny? Are you sick? Why don't you
speak?"
It is not easy to express the force of the struggle which went on in
poor Milly's mind. It seemed to her at that moment as if all the hopes
of her life were set against her honesty. The material issues in any
conflict between principle and inclination are of less importance than
the desire which they represent. The few thousand dollars involved in
the redemption of the Stanton meadows was little when compared to the
magnificent scheme of which this would be a mere trifling accident, but
the sum represented all the desires of Milly Blake's life, while over
against it stood all her faith, her honesty, and her religion.
For an instant she wavered, standing as if by some spell suddenly
arrested, with arms half extended. Then she flung down the paper and
threw herself upon her lover's breast with a burst of tears.
"Why, Milly," he said, soothingly. "Milly, Milly."
He was unused to feminine vagaries. His betrothed was of the outwardly
quiet order of women, and an outburst like this was incomprehensible to
him. He could only hold the weeping girl in his strong embrace,
soothing her in helpless masculine fashion, awkward, but exactly what
she needed.
"There, John," she cried at last, giving him a tumultuous hug, and
looking up into his face through her tears, "I always told you you were
engaged to a fool, and this is a new proof of it."
"But what in the world," Stanton asked, looking down into her eyes with
mingled fondness and bewilderment, "is it all about? What is the
matter?"
"It is nothing but my foolishness," she answered, leading him back to
the chair from which he had risen. "I was going to show you something
in a paper I am copying, and just in time I remembered that I had
particularly promised not to show it to anybody."
He regarded her curiously.
"But why," he asked, with a certain deliberateness which somehow made
her uneasy, "did you want to show it to me."
"Because--because--"
She could not equivocate, and her innocent soul had had little training
in the arts of evasion.
"Because what?"
Stanton leaned back in his chair, holding her by the shoulders as she
sat upon his knee, and searching her face with his strong brown eyes.
Milly's glance drooped.
"Don't ask me, John," she responded, putting her hand against his
cheek, wistfully. "Don't you see I couldn't tell you without letting
you know what is in the paper, and that is precisely the thing I
promised not to do."
There are few men in whom a woman's open refusal to yield a point, no
matter how trifling, does not arouse a tyrannous masculine impulse to
compel obedience. Stanton had really no great curiosity about the
secret, whatever it might be, but he instinctively felt that it was
right to demand the telling because his betrothed refused to speak. His
face grew more grave. The hands upon Milly's shoulders unconsciously
tightened their hold. The girl intuitively felt that a struggle was
coming, although even yet the signs were hardly tangible. She grew a
little paler, putting her hand beneath her lover's bearded chin, and
holding his face up so that she could look straight into his fearless,
honest eyes.
"Dear John," she said, wistfully, "you know I never have a secret of my
own that I keep from you in all the world."
"But why," demanded he, "can it do any harm for you to give me some
reason why you ever thought of telling me this; and just at a time,
too, when we were talking of business."
"Because," she answered, thoughtlessly, "it was about business."
A new light came into Stanton's face. His lips subtly changed their
expression.
"It must have been a chance to make some money," he said.
She grew deadly pale, but she did not answer him. He searched her face
an instant, and then he lifted her in his strong arms, rising from the
chair, and seating her in his place. He took a step forward, and
stretched out his hand to take the paper she had thrown upon the table.
With a cry of terror she sprang up and caught his arm.
"John!" she exclaimed. "Oh, for pity's sake, don't look at it."
He turned and regarded her with a more unkind glance than she had ever
seen upon his face.
"Will you tell me?" he asked.
"I can't, I can't!" she answered, half sobbing.
He looked at the paper, and then at his sweetheart. Then with a rough
motion he shook off her fingers from his arm, and without a word went
abruptly from the room.
Milly looked toward the door which had closed after him as if she could
not believe that he had really gone; then she sank down to the floor,
and, leaning her head upon a chair, she sobbed as if her heart were
broken.